Earlier this month we told you that Waterloo Investments sought to appeal its second NEAC rejection to the three person Tribunal. We also reported on the conflict of interest with one of the members of that tribunal, business senator, Kevin Herrera whose brother is the lead local consultant for Waterloo.
Because of that, a statutory instrument had to be drawn up to appoint someone else to the tribunal which was announced as Lucy Fleming of Chaa Creek Lodge. And they also identified a third member of the Tribunal to be the scene expert. Today, the Minister told us more about how the members were chosen.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"In this case, looking at the concerns from all around, the Belizean community, ourselves looking at the persons, we had, because of perception believed that also getting from the media and everybody else, concerns, there is the possibility, the perception that the current sitting senator has been biased because of what had transpired before, one that he represents the Chamber of Commerce who had come vocally and stated that they were in support of Waterloo for their reasons and they have their reasons and we have to respect that but also because of the position that I think I believe his brother had been involved in the EIA process with Waterloo and so I took it upon myself from advice from the ministry to write the senator asking if he believes there was any conflict of interest which he express through a response letter that there was no conflict of interest from his perspective and after reviewing it with my team and with recommendations from our legal council, we thought that yes there was so we asked that he be recused from that and that we select somebody else, also not going out of bounds but somebody who would represent the business community and some names came up and I think that Ms Lucy Flemming was selected to be that person. She has been involve din the tourism sector, which pertains to what happens in the sea also, I think she has been involved in BTIA as the president, I think with the BTB for a long time, and so she's that second person that will be representing the tribunal. The third person we had to get somebody who is a professional we looked around Belize trying to see somebody who had not been involved one way or another to not have that same conflict or perception of conflict of interest so we decided to go out, we looked at the Caribbean, we looked at a few people and then we looked extra regionally and we looked at people from England and Australia and everywhere else and we finally honed down on looking at Professor Terry Hughes who is from Cooks University in Australia."
But the concern now is that a Tribunal of three members will have the authority to overturn a decision made twice by the NEAC, which has more than ten members on it. The media asked the Minister about this today.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"I believe that it would have to do more with what the Tribunal is going to look at because if they are going to look at the technical part completely then try and reestablish what was being discussed or reviewed at the technical level then possibly you'll be saying looking at 3 persons versus 14 or 15 who sat at the NEAC but if they are going to look at the process itself, whether or not it was fair, if it went through a legal process then that is something else then maybe one person can do that, we see that in the courts where one judge makes a decision over whatever matters have gone to him or her."
Reporter:
"And there's no guidelines set out by the government to determine what would be looked at by the Tribunal specifically? Will those members determine that guideline?"
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"Right, according to the law led by the person who leads the Tribunal, who is the judge, they will decide on the process."
